In March of this year an expedition to Easter Island concluded with a slew of new species discovered living in the island’s “twilight zone”, the area between 200 and 500 feet deep. The team consisted of scientists from the California Academy of Sciences and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC) and was the sixth expedition of the CAS’s Hope for Reefs initiative to study and restore coral reefs worldwide. Definitively the expedition recorded four new species of fish and one new species of sea biscuit that reside in the twilight zone.

Dr. Rich Mooi, Academy Curator of Invertebrate Zoology and Geology, had this to say about Easter Island:

“Rapa Nui is so remote, it’s hard for anything to get there, whether you are a human or a tiny larva drifting the high seas. If larvae do ride the currents this far, they often evolve into something new. That’s what makes this place so exciting—when you do find something that made it to Rapa Nui, it’s often unlike anything else on Earth.”

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